As a registered Android developer, today I, along with thousands of other devs, got the following email from the Android Market Support team. The email informed me that the developer console, which is the interface used for publishing new apps, will be unavailable this Thursday, November 18th from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. PST. The customer-facing Market itself will continue working just fine (or so I hope at least), but no new applications or app updates will be allowed.

Now, what could this update be for? It could be as simple as the promised Market housekeeping that was announced 5 days ago, although it seemed far less serious, and I got the impression that it did not require any downtime.

Alternatively, Google may be preparing the Market for something much-much bigger. If you remember, the day before the housekeeping alert, Tim Bray from the Android team mentioned the following after listing 6 new Market features that had been implemented in the last months:

You’ll notice that I didn’t say “Sixth and last”, because this is a team on a roll and I expect lots more goodness from them; if you care about the larger Android ecosystem, or are already a developer, or are thinking of becoming one, stay tuned to this channel.

We're writing to inform you about a planned service outage impacting Android Market that requires your attention. We plan to perform maintenance on the Android Market Developer Console on Thursday 18 November 2010 from 10AM to 4PM Pacific Standard Time. During this time, there will be view-only access to the Developer Console at http://market.android.com/publish. You will be able to view your list of applications and error reports; however, you will not be able to upload new apps or make updates to existing apps. The publish status of your applications and use of the Android Market app on phones should not be impacted.

Thanks, and we appreciate your patience while we work to improve Android Market.